


The Endless Meaning of a Hug

by badboy_fangirl



Category: Prison Break
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-10-18 07:26:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10612083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badboy_fangirl/pseuds/badboy_fangirl
Summary: Why man-hugs originated, and were then perpetuated.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A friend said to me, "The Manhugs: Whatever happened to these lovely, sweaty, non-sexual, come-here-papi, hug-it-out-bitch embraces?! I'm a sucker for these, I don't know why." And this is what happened.

I.  
He remembers when it started - or perhaps when it stopped - because it was the first time they were parted by the System. Child Services decided to put Lincoln in a separate Foster home, with the hope that it would cause him to behave better. Michael discovered later, as an adult, it had been a punishment for Lincoln to be taken away from his little brother, but as a child he hadn't been able to stop wondering what he'd done wrong. Lincoln had hugged him goodbye, the fierce gripping of Michael's entire body pulled tight against Lincoln's bigger, and even then, more muscled torso, that mashed his nose roughly into his face. It had hurt, but he hadn't cared. 

When they were reunited, Lincoln also hugged him, but that had been after Pershing Avenue, and Michael had desperately needed the hug in a way he had never needed one before, even when their mother died.

 

  
II.  
As he got older, the hugs became more infrequent. Mostly because they became symbolic of goodbye - a process they went through several times due to Child Services, or Lincoln's time in a Correctional Facility. They were exchanges they shared all too often, and so they stopped saying goodbye, and in turn they stopped hugging. Michael stopped wondering if each time he saw his brother would be the last. He couldn't live that way, and it seemed, Lincoln didn't want to have the finality it represented.

The riot at Fox River had been one of the things he planned, but no amount of planning could have prepared him for what it became. When Lincoln hauled him into his embrace, the feeling in that grasp brought home even more acutely that it had turned into life or death. Lincoln hadn't expected to find Michael alive, so when he had, the relief that had poured out between them had been all-consuming. Michael had fought tears that were somehow joyously painful. 

He'd been relieved to be alive as well; it had been a closer call than he would ever tell his brother.

 

  
III.  
They'd said goodbye the day of the execution - not because Michael had wanted to believe it, but because Lincoln had had to accept it. Only not really, as it turned out. Sometimes Michael thought of those as wasted hugs, but he tried to remember only that which he didn't mean was truly wasted.

Their hugs, however rare, meant that they loved each other. The fact that Lincoln didn't hug him more often was because he hadn't wanted Michael to be too soft, to need too much coddling. Their lives had never been easy, and unnecessary hugs wouldn't change the reality they had always lived in. There was truth in that, an understanding that came to him in Fox River. He'd had to endure so much with only Lincoln's words to buoy him up, or only the fantasy of his plans that existed for outside the walls of the prison.

He learned to walk with only three toes on one foot and without a limp. That was something he could do because Lincoln had taught him to be strong; to not need things other people needed. It would never have occured to his brother to hug Michael even if he could have - although maiming Abruzzi in some way came instantly into Lincoln's vocabulary. That was how they operated.

 

  
IV.  
He couldn't have stopped the tears the day Lincoln hugged him goodbye in Utah even if he'd tried. His brother was telling him that they might not see each other again, but it was somehow better because it was on their terms outside the walls of Fox River. Michael imagined Lincoln liked the idea of going down in a blaze of glory much more than in the Electric Chair.

Through their father dying, through Chicago and the failed plan to bring down Caroline Reynolds, through Sara not making the freighter to Panama, and even through all of what happened at Sona, Michael hadn't expected, nor had his brother offered any hugs of consolation. Part of it was Lincoln's own anger at the situation, Michael was sure. Being helpless would only be exacerbated by admitting anything through an embrace. 

But then Sara was gone, and LJ was safe, and Michael had to leave, and Lincoln hadn't tried to argue anything. He'd offered the car keys as a symbol of the freedom Michael had once enjoyed but never treasured, and now, would never have again, not in that innocent sense he'd had only four months previously. He'd initiated that hug, because he knew the last thing Linc wanted to do was let him go. But the embrace had been both a blessing and a reminder. 

Michael could leave, but Lincoln would always be with him.

 

  
V.  
The night Michael and Lincoln went with Alexander Mahone to a San Diego dock to find the man who had killed his son, they had a silent agreement. Whatever happened today was their last act of kindness for the man who had killed their father. Sara's little boat had been set adrift, and she waited for them, because it was finally all over.

Except for this one last thing that Lincoln had planned without Michael. He'd even told Michael he didn't have to come, but now that it was all said and done - really and truly finished - Michael couldn't imagine separating himself from his brother again. He went with them to make sure Lincoln came back.

The irony of watching Lincoln help Alex somehow became the poetic cherry on top on the last six months of their lives. Michael could not imagine his existence permanently housing Alex in any way, but he also knew of many occasions he would not have lived through if it weren't for the former FBI agent.

He remembered Alex's words on their last day at Sona, when he'd told him that taking a human life never got easier. Michael thought now as Alex aimed and fired a gun at point blank range into the large black man's chest, that that one was incredibly easy, for all of them. A moment of quiet assaulted them after the gun blast, and Michael decided that one man, dead on the pavement, was symbolic of every other person who had killed anyone that any of them loved.

For Lincoln and Michael, Alex had just killed himself.

Then Lincoln walked over to Alex and took the gun from his hands. He held it carefully, wiping fingerprints from all its surfaces with the hem of his shirt before turning and tossing it into the harbor. When he pivoted back towards Michael, he hesitated just a moment before swinging his torso in Alex's direction. Then he wrapped his arms around the other man. It was brief, but fierce. It lasted no longer than five seconds. And when they all walked away, the end had arrived.

 


End file.
